Japanese sex workers sold fictitious identities

Japanese police are cracking down on businesses which provide respectability to women engaged in sex-work. The alibi-ya provide women in the country's sex industry with a reputable but totally fictitious identity, designed to conceal their real job from their families. The companies provide things like fake business cards, references and employment certificates to sex workers, and have even been known to provide a fake boss for birthday speeches and other family events. The companies are not illegal, but police have cracked down on fraud cases that have involved the use of their services. Shintaro Sakamoto runs an alibi-ya in Tokyo. "We provide assistance to mainly hostesses and prostitutes," he said. "We help them to rent apartments, and we help them get their kids into nursery schools. We do this by helping them with their identity." In other words, Mr Sakamoto's company sets the client up with a totally fake job and background - one which is acceptable to real estate agents and nursery schools which might baulk at dealing with a sex worker. "Women who work in the sex industry or as a hostess don't want their father and mother to find out about it, and so we get many requests asking us to please create a more respectable identity," he said. Alibi-ya like Mr Sakamoto's even offer phone services. When, for example, parents ring the office their daughter supposedly works at, the alibi-ya will be ready with the deception, explaining their daughter is in a meeting and will call back shortly. The alibi-ya will then ring the woman's mobile and tell her to call home. Even the caller ID is fixed so it looks like the woman is calling from the landline in her fake office. There is nothing illegal about the service, despite the fact that it offers false employment certificates, fake tax receipts, and dodgy business cards. But recently police busted an alibi-ya after two clients used false documents they obtained at a Tokyo-based service to get a large bank loan. "Under Japanese law alibi companies are not - on the face of it - illegal," the national police agency said in a statement. "It is difficult to expose possible illegality by these firms such as fraud and the counterfeiting of documents. "If we could, we would crack down on them." Mr Sakamoto insists that his business is merely about providing people on the margins of Japanese society with a respectable identity. "We don't provide this service when it's clear from the beginning that the purpose is for fraud, assets or money," he said. "We limit cases to those clients who simply want to hide their work from their family." And to do that there have even been cases of alibi-ya sending along a fake boss to weddings and other family gatherings to make speeches, all to keep up the charade.